Addicted To You .L.S.

Seven.

Four Months Ago
(Seventeen Years old)

The day after Harry is murdered, my dad drives me home from the hospital. We're silent the whole way. I want to rest my head against the window to let the solidity ground me. But when I lean my temple against the glass, it presses against the arc of stitches. I wince and look to my right.
  It's sunny out. A crisp February day, snow still clamping the mountains. There are kids playing in the park as we pass it. It seems strange, life going on now, after everything.

Dad opens the car door for me after we pull into the driveway. When we get into the house, I hesitate at the bottom of the stairs. He looks at me, concern in his face. "Do you need help?"
I shake my head. "I'm gonna shower."
"Remember, the detective should be here in and hour. Do you think you'll be ready to talk then?"

They'd sedated me at the hospital. I'd been too out of it to answer questions when the police came by.
The idea of talking about it makes me when to scream, but I say. "I'll be ready," before I head up the stairs.

I turn the water on and undress slowly in the bathroom, peeling off my sweats and shirt. That's when I see it: a smear of red-turned-brown on my knee. Harry's blood.
I press my fingers against the spot, my nails digging into my skin until beads of flesh, bright red appear. My fingers are stained with it and it makes my chest go tight.
Five months. Three weeks. One day. Ten hours.

I breath in. The air's steamy from the shower, hot, almost sticky down my throat. I peel off the sneakers dad brought me to wear home. My feet are still dirty. I'd been wearing sandals last night. Along with everything else I'd had on, there probably sitting in a bag somewhere, being tested for evidence.

All they'll find is his blood. My blood. Our blood. My nails dig deeper into my knee. I take a breath, then another.
On the third, I step in the shower.
I let the water wash away the last of him.

When I get out of the shower, I find my mother ransacking my room.
"Are there more?" She demands. There's mascara running down her face, eyes flecked with red as she rips the sheets off my bed and flips the mattress.

I stand there wrapped in a towel, my hair dripping into my shoulders, stunned. "What are you doing?"
"Drugs, Louis. Are there more?" She rips the cases off my pillows, unzips them, and pokes her hand inside clawing through the fluff.

"There aren't any drugs in here." I'm reeling from the anger that throbs off of her like heat.
Mom grabs my jewellery box off my dresser, shaking it upside down. My rings tumble out, falling in a heap on the ground. She yanks my drawers with enough force to pull them clean out and dumps their contents on my bed.
After she tears through shirts and boxes, tears leak from the corner of her eyes, smearing more black down her face.

Mom is not an emotional person. She's a lawyer down to her bones. She likes control. Rules. The chaos she's rained down on my room is so out of character that I just stand there, mouth open.
"Mom, I'm not doing any drugs." It's my only offence: the truth. I have nothing else.

"You're lying. Why are you still lying to me?" More tears course down her face as she throws open the closet door. "Detective James was just downstairs. He told me they found OxyContin in your jacket pocket."

"What? No. No!" Shock penetrates that numbness that's taken over me. My eyes widen as I realise she's believes him... as I realise what this means.

"The police talked to Kylie Miller this morning. Kylie says Harry told her that you two were going to the Point to score."
"No!" I'm on a loop, the only word I can get out. "Kylie's lying! Harry was barely even talking to Kylie. He wouldn't even pick up his phone when she called!"

Mom looks up at me from the closet and there's shame mingling with the smeared mascara and tears in her eyes.
"They found the pills, Louis," she cries. "You left then in your jacket at the crime scene and we all know they weren't Harry's. I can't believe this. You're not even home a month and you've already relapsed. Which means everything Marry did..." She gestures wildly with one of my shoes and shakes her head. "I should've have sent you to rehab. I should never had let you go to Marry's. You need professional help. That's my fault, and I'm going to have to live with that."

"No, mom. We weren't out there to score, I swear. Harry was meeting someone about a story he was doing for the paper. I'm not on drugs! I haven't taken or bought anything. I'm clean! My test at the hospital were clean! I've got five and a half months!" I exclaim.

"Stop playing games, Louis. Your best friend's dead! He's dead! And it could have been you!" She throws the shoe across the room. It thumps again the far wall and scares me so badly my knees buckle. I crash to the floor, hands over my head, my throat choked with fear.
  "Oh God, sweetie. No, no, I'm sorry." She says, not just apologising for throwing the shoe.

I struggle to breath with her so close. I can't stand the contact. I push her away, scooting until my backs pressed against the wall. She stays where she is. Crouched next to my dresser, staring at me, horrified.

"Louis, please," she whispers. "Tell the truth. It'll be okay. As long as you tell me. I need to know, so I can figure out how to keep you out of trouble. It'll make you feel better, sweetheart."
  "I'm not lying."
"Yes, you are." She says, the ice creeping back into her voice. She draws herself up, standing straight over me. "I won't let you kill yourself. You're going to stay clean, even if I have to lock you up."

She shreds that final threat of naiveté I have. It's in pieces on the floor, with the rest of my life. My mother tears apart whatever's left, determined to find the lies, the pills—anything to prove Kylie and the detective right.
   She doesn't find anything. There's nothing to find. But it doesn't matter. Kylie's words, those pills shoved in my jacket, they're enough to convince anyone. Even her. Especially her.
Two weeks later she sends me to rehab.